The speaker, Haroon Moghul, is Executive Director of The Maydan Institute. He served as Director of Public Relations at the Islamic Center at New York University (NYU) from 2007 to 2009. He holds an M.A. in Middle East and South Asian Studies from Columbia University, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate. His fields of study include Muslim nationalism in South Asia, colonial and post-colonial Islamic politics and the development of the Indian Ocean economy. Mr. Moghul graduated from NYU in 2002 with a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and Philosophy, and a minor in Arabic. He has also has studied Persian, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu.